Skeptics, Humanists Come Together in Tacoma in First Joint ConferenceSkepticism, Humanism, or Both?

It was billed as the CFI Summit—An International Congress in the Pacific Northwest, and it was a kind of experiment. “The time has come: humanists, skeptics, and other critical thinkers coming together to work together for a more rational world.” That was the meeting’s call to action, as the first joint conference of the Center for Inquiry and its affiliate organizations, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer) and the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH, publisher of Free Inquiry), convened in a stylish, modernist hotel in Tacoma, Washington, October 24–27, 2013. The conference thus included/subsumed what otherwise CSI would have called CSICon 3, following the first CSICon in New Orleans in 2011 and CSICon 2 in Nashville in 2012.

The weather outside was foggy, though the talk inside was anything but, as skeptic and humanist speakers explored all the areas in which their interests and passions overlap, and a few that some may (and others may not) wish to keep separate.

The opening plenary session, “Humanism, Skepticism, and Inquiry,” was a theme of much of the conference and the point of continuing discussion throughout. Is it about time the two major arms of the Center for Inquiry—skeptics with their love of science and evidence-based inquiry and humanists with their naturalistic philosophy and distrust of religious intrusions in public life—come together, at least once a year, in a conference like this? Or are there still good reasons that the two groups keep their own separate conferences?

If you drew two circles representing the interests and values of members of the two groups, they’d probably overlap by about two-thirds or three-fourths.
But the overlap isn’t total. Philosopher Paul Kurtz, who founded CSI and CSH, considered both organizations and their missions equally important. Yet while
he himself embraced all their values and goals in one over-arching personal philosophy, he, for various practical reasons, including the wishes of many
members, kept the two organizations and their conferences separate, with the later-created Center for Inquiry as mainly a logistical and administrative
connective.

Panelists in the opening session on “Humanism, Skepticism, and Inquiry” take questions. (Photo: Brian Engler)

Ronald A. Lindsay, now the CEO and president of all three organizations, opened the plenary session with an explication of what they all have in common: a
commitment to critical thinking and a conviction that beliefs should not outstrip the evidence. He suggested that there are no irreconcilable differences
between skepticism and humanism. “They are compatible. . . .We need to examine all things carefully and go where the evidence takes us. That unifies us.”

Ray Hyman and Daniel Loxton took a contrary view. Hyman, a founding Fellow of CSICOP (now CSI), said, “The real problem is the perception.” He referred to
a sometimes “uneasy tension” between the skeptics and humanists and an early concern in the organizations’ histories in which skeptics became upset at what
they considered “religion bashing” by some humanists and some humanists became upset at what they considered skeptics’ bashing of parapsychology. In
Hyman’s recollection this led to Kurtz’s determination to keep the two groups’ conferences separate. Hyman also noted that in the skeptic movement a lot of
people can be at least somewhat religious and still good scientific skeptics. “Skeptics are more inclusive by nature,” he said. “It’s probably not a good
idea to mix these two groups.”

Lindsay quickly emphasized—as did CFI Board Chairman Edward Tabash later in the conference—that CFI doesn’t “bash” religion but examines it. It emphasizes
that religion should not have a privileged place in society exempt from critical scrutiny.

Loxton, though, echoed Hyman’s theme. Loxton, editor of the Skeptic Society’s Junior Skeptic and author of several books (including some on
evolution), has become a kind of informal historian of the skeptic movement. He says he feels intimately connected to both traditions, skeptic and humanist
(he is both). Nevertheless, said Loxton, “I am a CSICOP-style skeptic” and noted that the creation of CSICOP filled a large gap in scholarship. “I care
about keeping scientific skepticism unencumbered and independent,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what we believe. The question is what we can demonstrate to
be so. Skepticism matters.”

Barry Kosmin, founding member of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College (and a board member of all three
organizations) described what he calls “The Rising Secular-Skeptic Generation,” based on his national surveys of college students (the latest this summer
carried out in collaboration with CFI). The 2013 survey found that only 32 percent of college students self-describe themselves as religious. Twenty-eight
percent refer to themselves as secular (males more prominent in this group) and 32 percent as spiritual (females more prominent). His point is that “a
large constituency of millions of young people is emerging” favorable to the viewpoints of CFI.

Michael De Dora, director of CFI’s Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Brian Engler)

Michael De Dora, director of CFI’s Office of Public Policy in Washington, DC, said he thinks skeptics and humanists can work best together. They have
complementary values on many issues, he said. He agreed that CFI presents a bit of a challenge because it is a “mish-mash” of many things, but that can be
overcome.

Some other panelists, like Ophelia Benson (an author and Free Inquiry columnist) and Mark Hatcher (CFO of Black Atheists of America) expressed
impatience with the whole debate. Instead of emphasizing this internal issue, Hatcher urged focusing on a far bigger, external problem, endemic to both
groups: “We are terrible at communication.” He said both humanists and skeptics need to take a lesson from the churches. “Churches do things correctly as
far as communications. They have found the beat. They have found the rhythm and how the heart works. If you want people engaged, you’ve got to get your
finger on the beat. If we do, we have the advantage of actually having facts.”

Bill Cooke, director of CFI’s transnational programs, also spoke out with some impatience. In Kenya and Uganda, where he has worked on behalf of CFI,
“there are serious issues of life and death” that involve both parts of the organization, including the skeptic side, such as belief in witchcraft that
often leads to murders. “There this issue is irrelevant.”

The discussions continued a while longer in this way, all polite and civil. If any fireworks were expected, none were set off. By conference-end, it seemed
most everyone, skeptic or humanist, had learned a little bit about the other’s concerns, and in fact found that their issues tended to blend one in to
another in a more or less seamless way.

Zack Koplin, Young Education Activist

Zack Koplin is the amazingly dedicated and self-possessed college student from Rice University who as a high school student in Louisiana fought vigorously
against efforts to introduce creationist teachings into the schools. He gave an inspiring lecture about his fight for science in Louisiana, Texas, and
across the country.

“Louisiana has an addiction to creationism,” he said. The state’s Science Education Act “is so open-ended you can bring anything into it. . . . It’s not
about critical thinking. It’s really a creationism law.” Even Governor Bobby Jindal has said it’s about creationism, Koplin said. “It’s crystal clear this
is only about teaching creationism.”

In Texas, official reviewers of science textbooks include fellows of the creationist Discovery Institute and the Institute for Creation Research. “The
publishers have resisted so far,” said Koplin, but he wasn’t sure whether their resistance would continue to succeed.

The problem in both states is “backwards, antiscience legislators.” Louisiana passed a voucher system that takes money from the public schools and gives it
to creationist schools. He said $4 million of public money was taken away that way the first year.

“I want scientists who have been educated well,” Koplin concluded. As for the sometimes nasty attacks he has encountered from creationists, he has endured
them, “but sometimes you want to just go to sleep for a week.”

Bill Nye, “The Science Guy”

Bill Nye delivers the summit’s keynote talk. (Photo: Brian Engler)

At the evening banquet, conference attendees filled the round dinner tables. Looming at the back were four empty rows of folding chairs spanning the entire
width of the ballroom. A bad sign? No, as it turned out. As dinner ended and the time neared for Bill Nye’s keynote talk, suddenly the doors at the back
opened and in rushed an exuberant crowd of mostly local people, including a fair number of youngsters. The talk had been advertised on the sides of city
buses, and outside the banquet hall CFI sold tickets for just his talk. (He was still in a leg brace from his Dancing with the Stars appearances,
and it was now just a few days before his November 7 appearance on a typically witty episode of the CBS television comedy The Big Bang Theory
pitting Bill Nye “The Science Guy” against Bob Newhart as “Dr. Proton.”)

Nye’s was a rousing talk, roaming over how we determined the age of the Earth at 4.6 billion years (“Why then try to pretend the Earth is 10,000 years old?
Amazing!”), the makeup of the universe (“90 percent hydrogen, 8 percent helium, 2 percent ‘everything-

elsium’”), the fragility of the atmosphere, our spacecraft now soaring on beyond the edge of the solar system, and some of our external views of Earth from
distant space. All this led to a passionate advocacy for interest in science and science education. And that led in turn to Nye’s frequently repeated
mantra: “We can change the world!” By midway through his talk the audience was thoroughly with him. Their chants “We can change the world” reverberated
along with his.

Example: “If we can harness the energy of young people and get them passionate about science, it is reasonable to think that we can . . . change the
world!”

“It is with great joy and reverence and passion that I talk about the impact of science education.” He ended by showing the Cassini spacecraft’s new view
of Earth from beyond Saturn as a tiny dot barely visible in the distance far past Saturn’s rings, an outside-in view of the solar system that provides
sobering cosmic perspective. “We are a speck on a speck, orbiting a speck.” But by our experiencing “the passion and joy and beauty of science . . . we can
change the world!”

There followed an especially lively Q&A period. Most all the questions came from the newly arrived audience members, and two nearly moved Bill Nye to
tears by their stories of how he has inspired them to pursue a lifetime interest in science. Said one person: “You have been a major influence to me
personally. Thank you for being who you are.”

“I have tried to influence young people,” Nye said. “The scientific method is the best idea humans ever had.”

It should be easy to draw people in, he added, because science deals with some of humanity’s most profound questions. Among them: “Where did we come from?”
and “Are we alone?”

“We are made of stars,” he concluded. “If that doesn’t fill you with some sort of joy . . . I don’t believe it!”

Leonard Mlodinow and New Point of Inquiry Hosts

Josh Zepps interviews Leonard Mlodinow on a live edition of Point of Inquiry. (Photo: Brian Engler)

Physicist and writer Leonard Mlodinow (author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, winner of CSI’s 2008 Balles Prize
for critical thinking) gave a lecture presentation on the topic of his new book, Subliminal: How Your Mind Rules Your Behavior. He presented
recent research from cognitive psychology and the new field of social neuroscience about the automatic aspects of our consciousness, which happen without
our awareness or intention.

“Our perceptions, memories, and social judgments are all constructed by our unconscious, from limited data,” said Mlodinow. Even with just perception, it
is a process of construction. “Your retina sees things fuzzily and incomplete”—he showed examples from experiments. “Your brain sharpens and fills in. Your
unconscious mind does this for you, and it’s a great gift.”

This happens with hearing as well. He played the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven” backward. You seem to hear “Satan” three times and also “666”—if
that is suggested to you. Similar things happen with all our other senses (experiments show how a light touch can create a sense of trust and even lead to
higher tips to waitresses). Memory is of course a reconstructive process as well. “Just like vision, your brain takes the gist of memory and reconstructs
it.”

He described how we all do what psychologists call motivated reasoning. “We look for data that supports what we want to believe.” This explains why people
can come to vastly different judgments even when the factual evidence before them is the same. “They’ve generally sincerely judged the evidence
differently—it’s unconscious.”

Laboratory tests show these processes in various ways. Experiments, for example, show that in elections, seventy percent of the candidates judged to be
“more competent looking” won.

At the end of that afternoon, Mlodinow was back on stage. The occasion this time was the first interview (and before a large live audience) with the new
cohosts of CFI’s weekly Point of Inquiry podcast, Josh Zepps and Lindsay Beyerstein. An Australian, Zepps joins the CFI podcast as a founding host
and producer at online talk network HuffPost Live, after hosting stints with Bloomberg TV, the Discovery Channel, and as anchor for CBS’s Peabody
Award–winning Channel One News. Zepps conducted the interview with Mlodinow, who got the chance to expand some about the fact that most of our thinking
comes from the unconscious and about motivated reasoning (“thinking like a lawyer, not a scientist.”)

The other cohost, Lindsay Beyerstein, is an investigative journalist and staff writer for In These Times. Longtime SI readers will remember her
late father, psychologist and CSI Fellow and Executive Council member Barry Beyerstein. She interviewed conference lunch speaker Katherine Stewart (author
of The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children) on religious extremism and how the Christian right has managed
to gain so much influence actually operating in public schools. These two interviews are online at www.pointofinquiry.org.

Back from the CFI Summit, I am completely impressed. Not only was there no obvious twerking, but there was no drama, and in our tight little community of
scientific skeptics that is a wonderful thing. I will say very little here about the lectures, as I didn’t really attend them. My agenda was not passive; I
went to network and recruit people to join my Skeptic Action and GSoW projects (Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, see SI Interview, March/April 2012).

The Summit was the same week as Halloween. For years now I have been saying I will dress up “next year,” and when that year arrives it doesn’t seem to
happen. Now I’m bald from the chemo killing my breast cancer and felt that finally “next year” was “this year.” So I went all out: I changed costumes twice
a day. Cleopatra, Medusa, Che Guevara, and many, many odd hats. For the costume party I was a phrenology dummy. Susi Beyerstein, Jeanine DeNorma, and Herb
Masters had the honor of drawing the wonders of the brain all over my head in eyeliner. I took second prize (best skeptical costume, though). The
cleverness from our community to come up with great skeptical costumes was really delightful.

I wasn’t sure what my reception would be; since I was a speaker, should I reflect a more professional attitude? Well, it isn’t every day you get a pass to
blame everything on the chemo, so I just went with it, and no one cared. In fact it was extra wonderful. CFI was more than helpful—Wi-Fi, food, electricity
at a free table. The general attendees loved the outfits and hats. All day, every day people came over to talk about what I was wearing. The mood was
great; so many people were attending their first skeptic/humanist conference, and they were excited to be able to see fun like-minded people who wanted to
meet them also. Not only was this happening in their backyard (the Pacific Northwest), but the quality of the speakers, great food, Wi-Fi, and tables in
the lecture room really spoiled them. The Hotel Murano was a lovely place, glass art everywhere, just like staying in an art museum.

My goal was to hang out with attendees, network, photograph, and recruit. I was also able to spend quality time with many people teaching them how to use
Web of Trust and Rbutr and to edit Wikipedia for skeptical activism, which is my specialty. Because of my unique position, I was able to listen, observe,
and talk about the event with lots of people. Now, after some reflection, I would like to share my opinion on the big question organizations like CFI want
an answer to.

In many quarters there seems to be an attitude that humanism and skepticism should be kept separate. We are too different and don’t understand why “they”
would be interested in what they are doing, when what “we” are doing is so much more important. The general opinions are that skeptics are naysayers and
“Bigfoot skeptics.” All that nonsense has been long ago debunked so why should anyone care anymore? And humanists (also called atheists) are too focused on
social issues, don’t follow the scientific method, and believe all kinds of antiscience things (Bill Maher is an example).

The theme of the CFI Summit this year was to open this debate and hope to come up with some kind of answer. After all, times are tough, we have to watch
our dollars, and if thousands were attending these conferences and all seats were filled, then I’m sure the separate conferences would happen. We could
even throw conferences focused on specific topics like UFOs, atheism, medical quacks, and so on, but at the moment we don’t have that luxury. So how do we
best spend our conference dollars?

Jeanine DeNorma and Suzi Beyerstein turn Susan into a phrenology dummy for the Halloween costume contest. (Photo by Herb Masters)

Clearly, I did hear lots of people (usually first time conference attendees) state that they were attending an atheist conference. Some people said they
were telling their families that they were attending a science conference, because I suppose they wanted to avoid backlash. For two hours on Thursday there
were competing workshops, one on “Atheism and Naturalism” and the other on a “Skeptic’s Toolbox.” On Friday I was part of a panel that discussed
investigation and activism, while in a different area the humanists discussed measuring unbelief. The rest of the conference we all met together in one big
room with various topics, scientific as well as humanist.

Here is what I discovered. The initial opinion from the skeptics, that the humanists were not interested in scientific skepticism and that they held
antiscience opinions, was unfounded. I never once heard a humanist with this opinion. They seemed just as interested in psychics and medical quackery as
any skeptic. And while the skeptics might have felt a bit hurt that there were more antireligion type lectures at the conference, they were happy to join
in the conversations once they attended, the exception being when the lecture seemed angry or ranting about religion. Some of the lectures were difficult
to decide what camp they fell into. Eugenie Scott and Zack Kopplin’s lectures about creationism in the classroom and legislature were common ground.
Katherine Stewart’s research into the Good News Clubs in America was also gripping for both groups. There were also lectures discussing legislation as well
as psychology of belief, important topics to understanding what we are up against. Topics like creationism in the schools and antiscience medical claims
hit home to both camps.

Many good points were made, one of which is that on college campuses today, atheism is hot, and we should be emphasizing this while they are interested.
Another point made was that sometimes more doors will open when we are focused on science and not religion. Schools are more likely to allow in a skeptic
group than an antireligion one. Debbie Goddard stated the obvious when we were discussing leaving CFI magazines in public places for people to find. She
said she suspects that more people are likely to pick up a magazine on ghosts or vampires to browse through, than an issue devoted to humanism. Possibly it
is just easier to use science and skepticism to start the discussion with people. And that is what we are trying to do after all: start a discussion.

Learn to edit Wikipedia with Medusa. (Photo by Brian Engler)

I’ve learned that some churches are using cryptozoology as real to disprove evolution. What happens to that theory when the child looks up Nessie on
Wikipedia and discovers that Mom and Dad have that all wrong, and find that “Evidence of its existence is anecdotal”? Followed with plenty of citations
that child can follow to the investigations and evidence our skeptic community has left there for them to find? This is why people start questioning their
religion, small questions that start a snowball of questions. This is what happened to me. But didn’t I say earlier that people aren’t interested in
Bigfoot skepticism? Someone should tell the 87,841 people who visited the Loch Ness page last month that no one cares about that stuff anymore.

I totally understand that religion is hot news right now. (When has it not been lately?) It seems like you can almost draw a line from most social problems
back to people’s unquestioning belief in something that has no scientific basis to it. They cling and fight to hold tight those tenets. We have to find
lots of ways to have these conversations. Brian Dunning from the Skeptoid podcast tells us that maybe the best way to have these uncomfortable
discussions is to find a topic you both can agree on and work your way to the hot topic when you are ready. Talk about what evidence means, how to question
something correctly, just keep talking and listening to each other.

On the thirty-minute van ride back to the airport I think the point was much clearer. Joe Nickell, Leonard Tramiel, and I totally engaged the four
strangers also traveling with us. We had great conversations about Bigfoot and UFOs and what evidence means. They were thrilled to hear stories about Bill
Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson. We were the cool kids in that van, and when the city bus rolled by with Bill Nye and the CFI Summit advertisement on it we
were beyond the cool club. One woman said, “I wanna hang out with you guys.” I suspect we would not have had the same reception if we were talking about
religion. Yet, if we had the time, the conversation might have gone in that direction. And they would have been more receptive to it if done in that order.

So back to CFI’s theme this year. Can we find common ground in our community? Should we combine conferences at least until the time we have grown so large
we are holding them in mega-church halls? My opinion is that we have to work together. We overlap so much and we are such a small community in comparison
to others. We need to find a way to respect each other’s passions, and talk to each other, not tweet at each other when we have a complaint. Face-to-face
contact at these conferences is very important. The networking, training, and bouncing of ideas off each other is what is needed. Yes, we have to continue
to grow and grow and grow. But first we need to start thinking of ways to stay together and find the common ground. Then maybe we can start making more
efficient progress.

Yes, conferences might lose money. It’s difficult to find the right formula in the right location at the right time of the year. And what works this year
might not the next. I doubt we are clever enough to figure it out. What I do know is that the one-on-one contact recharges our batteries. People like
Harriet Hall (Skepdoc), Lindsay Beyerstein (cohost of Point of Inquiry), and myself came from CSI’s Skeptic’s Toolbox. We weren’t primarily
authors or lecturers, just people with a passion for the skeptical movement who decided it was our turn to step up. You can’t buy that fire, but sometimes
you might have to kick the embers to keep us (and others) out there fighting what seems to be an insurmountable world of woo. Conferences are essential.

Oh yeah, a couple more things, at the end of every lecture the same question came up. What can I do to help? The main answer we heard was “give money.”
Very little happens without money; apparently it is pretty powerful. Besides that, pay attention to your local elections, especially school boards where
your vote can make a big difference. And the most obvious activism advice was to follow Skeptic Action on Facebook,
Twitter, or Google+ and join the GSoW team.

This is a serious question. The struggle for the integrity of science education in the United States, especially in regard to the teaching of evolution,
has been a grueling slog, a war of attrition. Despite the fact that creationism is an outdated myth, evolution’s opponents have been tenacious, determined,
and even at times, clever. With every victory for science and reason, those who want religious indoctrination to be part of our public schools adapt,
change their tactics, adjust their language and messaging, and, well, evolve to suit a changing environment.

In other words, no one political or legal win for science spells the end of the creationist assault on education. At least not so far. But we would be in a
much worse position if not for Eugenie Scott.

Most of you know about the high profile victories. Perhaps most famously, Dr. Scott was instrumental in the win for science in the Dover Trial, in which
intelligent design, a rickety Trojan Horse for creationism, was almost laughed out of the courtroom. But it was Dr. Scott and her team at the National
Center for Science Education (NCSE) who mustered the intellectual and academic forces necessary to make such a nationally recognized victory for science
possible. Not only did evolution win in a legal, technical sense, but what the judge called the “breathtaking inanity” of intelligent design was exposed
for what it is. It was a pivotal event legally, but perhaps even more so, it was pivotal culturally.

And this is where Dr. Scott has proven truly indispensable. In every new case, in every bad bill in a state legislature, or backward curriculum from a
creationist school board, the NCSE has not only brought to bear intellectual and scientific firepower, but in the person of Dr. Scott, science education
has perhaps its greatest ambassador. In the media, in talks to audiences like this one, in court rooms, and person to person, she brings an enthusiasm for
learning, a whip-smart sense of humor, an approachability that dispels stereotypes of scientists and secularists, and a generosity of spirit toward those
with whom she disagrees. Eugenie Scott has been crucial for the cause of science education, and she is truly irreplaceable.

But, though irreplaceable, she is moving on. As many of you know, Dr. Scott will be stepping down from her position as executive director of NCSE at the
end of this year, after a remarkable twenty-seven years on the job. Luckily for all of us, she leaves NCSE incredibly strong, nationally respected, and a
formidable force for the integrity of science education in America.

So, it gives me great pleasure to present this Center for Inquiry and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Eugenie C. Scott,
“Champion of Evolution Education.”

Nickell Presented Balles Prize

“It has been my great pleasure to have worked with Joe for several decades now . . . and I continue to be amazed, even awe-struck about his extraordinary
investigative skills, deep knowledge, insight, scholariness, professionalism, fairness, and literary productivity,” said CSI Executive Council member and
Skeptical Inquirer Editor Kendrick Frazier in presenting Nickell his award. “Both in the quality and the quantity of his investigations and writings, he is
a wonder, a true national treasure—international treasure really, because he investigates and is read everywhere he goes around the world—and one eminently
deserving of this year’s Robert P. Balles Prize.”

NOTE: CSICon3 is only 3 months away! Join us for CSICon3 October 24-27, 2013, part of the CFI Summit, a joint conference with CSI’s
sister organizations, the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism. Find out more at cfisummit.org.

Our CSICOP group (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) originated the skeptics’ conference. So it was refreshing when, after a multiyear hiatus, CSI
got back into the conference scene in October 2011 with its CSICon conference in New Orleans. That proved a fun intellectual idea fest (see reports in our
March/April 2012 issue). It was good to be back. For the 2012 conference (October 25–28), CSI moved the CSICon site north to Nashville, another lively
location, and the talks, symposia, and surrounding events garnered generally great reviews from participants.

The irrepressible Richard Wiseman, the U.K. psychologist and CSI Fellow, emceed throughout the conference with his usual effervescent wit. Many speakers
were CSI Fellows; all were knowledgeable experts. Chief conference organizer and CSI Executive Director Barry Karr didn’t speak but was everywhere in
evidence. The Halloween party again was a big hit. There was a midnight séance to call up Houdini (he didn’t show). The whole thing concluded on Sunday
with a lively first-ever full-audience interactive discussion with members of the CSI Executive Council.

CSI dedicated the conference to our founder and former longtime chairman, the philosopher Paul Kurtz. Kurtz died the weekend before at the age of
eighty-six (see our January/February 2013 issue for tributes). In the opening remarks, committee CEO and President Ronald A. Lindsay and I, representing
Skeptical Inquirer and the CSI Executive Council, lauded Kurtz’s powerful legacy in creating the modern skeptical movement. Many speakers over the next
days likewise remarked on Kurtz’s key role in creating the first organized movement to advance critical inquiry, the scientific attitude, and informed
scientific criticism of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.

All conference photos by Brian Engler

A live-audience two-hour taping of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast followed. The Novella clan (Steven, Bob, and Jay), Rebecca Watson,
and Evan Bernstein showed why their weekly science-and-skepticism show is so popular. George Hrab then entertained with his unique combination of guitar
and skeptical wit.

(All this was preceded by two preconference workshops, one by the Skepchicks applying skepticism to everyday nonsense, one on conducting investigations.)

The conference was off to a fine start. I was able to hear most sessions (I missed a couple of individual speakers). Some highlights I found memorable
follow.

Biologist P.Z. Myers is most known for his outspoken attacks on religion, but at CSICon for the second year in a row, he surprised many by giving a
straight science talk. The first part dealt with differing rates of evolution. “Selection works best in very large populations with a low mutation rate,”
he said. “Small populations with a high mutation rate are dominated by chance.” Lest we think humans are numerous in biological terms, he quickly
disabused. Humans have “a small population,” about 73109. In contrast Pelagibacter, which make up half of all bacterial
plankton in the ocean in summer, number about 231028. “So in humans, selection is not the prime pressure for change.”

Recent research into the gorilla genome shows, to the surprise of some, that “in 30 percent of the genome gorillas are closer to humans or chimpanzees than
the latter are to each other.” He then described how that agrees with calculations in what’s called coalescent theory, a population genetics model for
tracing genes back to common ancestors. The anti-evolution Discovery Institute, Myers said, claims that the gorilla genome research messes up the human
genetics connections to the great apes. “That’s hilarious,” Myers said. “These people don’t have a goddamned clue about evolutionary biology. They are dead
wrong.”

Psychologist James Alcock led off a session on Belief and Memory with a survey about belief, noting that beliefs are a dynamic production and can be
produced very quickly. Some beliefs are based on reason and carefully assembled evidence, but many are based on social constructions (we rely on the
perceptions and reactions of others we trust) and feeling. The “feeling of knowing” is an emotion and is not tied to knowledge and may have nothing to do
with reality. As for belief and disbelief, assessment is a two-stage process. We automatically believe new information before we assess it. Judging it
comes later, if at all. The brain processes content information and veracity information separately. He revisited “The Belief Engine” he wrote about in SI
many years ago (“we are a belief-generating engine”) and ended by emphasizing again that some beliefs correlate with reality, and some do not.

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus noted that beliefs can begin to feel like memories, “then we have false memories.” She described some of her and colleagues’
ground-breaking experiments demonstrating that beliefs can be implanted. She also gave examples of prominent political figures recalling false memories,
noting, “no one is protected from having false memories.” She also emphasized the notorious unreliability of eyewitness testimony, noting the Innocence
Project has used DNA evidence to overturn 225 wrongful convictions, “most based on faulty memories.” She facetiously proposed that the oath administered
to witnesses testifying should be changed to: “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or whatever you think you remember?”

Neuroscientist Indre Viskontas praised the value of storytelling as a memory aid (“to remember details of a past event make them part of a great story”)
but noted that remembering is a reconstructive process and remembering is often the functional equivalent of imagining.

In “Is Paul Dead?” investigator Massimo Polidoro gave one of the most entertaining talks, a multimedia feast of imagery and music and sounds playfully
exploring the persistent idea that Paul McCartney of the Beatles is dead. “What is going on here?” Polidoro asked. “There’s no evidence of a preplanned
hoax. . . . You start with an idea, and you look for proof. It can be anything. And it always works.”

Another hilarious session featured Richard Wiseman, Jon Ronson (author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, made into the movie with George Cooney), and
Rebecca Watson recounting their CSI “Paranormal Road Trip.” In this journey earlier that week by car from CSI headquarters in Amherst, New York, to the
Nashville conference site looking for “paranormal” adventures they encountered a lot of “haunted houses” but nothing paranormal. Wiseman did find himself
gobsmacked during a visit to the underground lair in Kentucky of a leading collector of magic memorabilia (“a cave full of magic”). There, neatly shelved
eighty feet underground, he found one of only fifteen first editions of a 1902 book, The Expert at the Card Table, by someone known only by the
pseudonym S.W. Erdnase. The book was far ahead of its time, said Wiseman, “the best sleight of hand ever.” “We still don’t know who wrote that book,”
Wiseman said. “It is a real mystery.” The group’s planned visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky didn’t happen. Recounted Watson: “They said yes, you can
film. But you can’t make fun of us. We ended up skipping it.”

That evening, at the CSI Halloween Party, Wiseman was presented his earlier-announced CSI Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking (SI, September/October 2012), for the best skeptical book of the year, Paranormality: Why We See What Isn’t There. On first thought the CSI Halloween
Party might seem a strange venue for awarding Wiseman his prize. But maybe it all does fit. He seemed to relish it.

Sara Mayhew, the writer/illustrator of Manga-style graphic novels (see her cover article in the March/April 2012 Skeptical Inquirer) gave another
entertaining talk, illustrated with her drawings. “I want to create a fandom-type feeling for skeptics and scientist heroes,” she said. She noted that
these comic versions of anime are a multimillion-dollar art form with a high female readership, about 70 percent in the U.S. “Good role models present a
variety of different people. Manga does that. Having more female role models is good for young men and males as well.” She said one can apply the same goal
to science role models.

“My goal is to combine my love of science and critical thinking with this emotional art form for people to connect.” Like Indiana Jones (“a cool scientist
role model”) or the women in her stories, “We need more of these epic stories,” but instead of “faith” and “believe” as themes, seen too often in other
epics, “we can have a message of, ‘How do we know about the world?’ in an honest way. We need heroes who think their way out of crises, who care about the
truth.”

With two strong statements—“Just because you call something science doesn’t make it so” and “There is no scientific evidence against evolution,” Eugenie C.
Scott of the National Center for Science Education began her report on the current status of evolution-creation disputes. At their root is that
creationists mistakenly believe that “evidence against evolution equals evidence for creation,” thus their continual attacks on evolution and their
evolving strategies for undermining its teaching.

Statehouse legislatures are a prime target. About forty “Evidence Against Evolution” bills, also called “academic freedom” bills, exist in various stages.
Two have passed, in Louisiana and Tennessee.

Creationists are masters at distorting the meaning of words. “If you see ‘balanced’ and ‘evolution’ on the same page, you know you are looking at a
creationist document.” Other euphemisms to look out for are “full range of views” and “teach the controversy.” Says Scott: “To miseducate young learners
does them no favors.”

Most all these latest bills avoid mentioning religion, stress free speech, advocate teacher protection if teaching “alternatives” to evolution, and use
permissive language (“allow” not “require”). “They are very clever the way they set up these bills.”

What to do? Inform yourself, pay attention to your legislature and state and local school boards, and support good science standards and teaching. As for
the court cases so far, the news is good: “One hundred percent of the case law has been in favor of evolution.”

A symposium on science and public policy was actually an update and elaboration of a controversy played out in recent issues of the Skeptical Inquirer:
social science research into political beliefs as described in SI contributing editor Chris Mooney’s 2012 book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, his SI article “Why the GOP Distrusts Science,” and the ensuing
controversy (letters in SI and Ronald A. Lindsay’s somewhat critical review of Mooney’s book in SI.) My introduction was a shorter form of what became my
editorial “Can We Have Civilized Conversations about Touchy Science Policy Issues” in our January/February 2013 issue.

Mooney, knowing he was much the target of the ensuing two talks, began by noting that he is a science journalist covering the research on the subject. “I’m
reporting on the research. So if you don’t like the conclusions, don’t blame me, blame the science.” He reiterated that those studies show that “there’s
something unique about Republicans’ view of science,” and it involves “not just denial of science” but “denial of reality.” He maintained that liberals
and conservatives “have different personalities.” Without even considering political content, key conservative traits are conscientiousness and order and
stability while a key liberal trait is openness to new experience and new ideas. These traits explain much about the different parties’ political views and
their attitudes toward science. In his view conservatives’ need for “cognitive closure” and a tendency toward authoritarian certainty and black-and-white
views is antithetical to scientific thinking.

Dan Kahan, a professor of law and of psychology at Yale University, was first up. The essential problem all are concerned about, he said, is “the failure
of valid and amply disseminated science to persuade.” He offered “one good explanation” and four “not so good” explanations.

The good explanation, said Kahan, is what he calls “identity-protective cognition.” It is simply this: “People have group allegiances that make them
interpret science findings in different ways.” Those ways consistently go in the direction of the values that protect their group identity. Other,
not-so-good explanations include science denial, misinformation, a rationality deficit, and authoritarian personality. Science denialism fails as an
explanation because views are divided along lines consistent with their group. People of each party “count someone as an expert when he has positions
consistent with their cultural outlook.” Both parties believe in being guided by a scientific consensus, “but they disagree on what that consensus is.”

Lindsay recounted the evidence he amassed in his SI review calling into question Mooney’s key conclusions. He concluded that one problem is that many of
the studies Mooney cited may actually not be measuring conservatism.

Unfortunately the session’s time ran out before Mooney could give any real response, other than to say that he disagreed with virtually all of Lindsay’s
criticisms. Nevertheless, after the session they were seen sitting at a table together in what seemed amiable conversation, so perhaps, in this setting at
least, the civility sought in the title of my SI editorial prevailed.

In his “The Science of Medicine” column in the November/December 2010 Skeptical Inquirer, Yale School of Medicine physician Steven Novella wrote tellingly
about “The Misunderstood Placebo,” and in his talk he returned to that topic.

The so-called placebo effect is a subjective-only effect, he said, not an objective one. It is manipulated by psychology only, not physiology. Most placebo
effects are illusory effects that depend upon belief in getting traction. As for the often-vaunted “mind-body” connection? “Well, yeah,” said Novella,
“because it’s the same option. What other option is there?” So-called “placebo medicine” exploits the confusion about placebos. It makes vague use of the
term “healing” and plays into the branding and marketing of “complementary and alternative medicine” (see sidebar about the pseudoscience in medical
schools). An example of the exploitation of placebo confusion is the often heard statement that “Acupuncture works—as a placebo.” That, said Novella,
“just means that the outcome was negative.” So what’s the harm? Extolling a placebo is “installing bizarre, unscientific, mystical, nonscientific beliefs
in patients.”

In case you didn’t know it, the world was supposed to end on December 21, 2012. The myth of an impeding apocalypse on that date—drawing on everything from
the Mayan calendar to supposed Sumerian or biblical predictions, to worries about comets or the nonexistent planet Nibiru, to pole shifts, planetary
alignments, and solar flares—infected credulous websites across the Internet and worried the hell out of a significant share of the world’s population (10
percent of Americans, according to a Reuters poll). Things got so bad that in the first week of December the Russian government put out an announcement
that the world would not end later that month, and in the United States NASA did much the same thing.

Come to think about it, as I write up these notes in mid December, it’s probably all for naught, but in the oft chance the world continues after the winter
solstice, I’ll continue. Planetary scientist David Morrison, as SI readers know, has been at the forefront of trying to rebut these rumors, providing
accurate scientific information through NASA’s “Ask an Astrobiologist” website, CSI’s website, and in articles and other forums. He spoke at CSICon
Nashville.

The whole thing would be silly and laughable except that Morrison gets pained messages from children so caught up in these beliefs that they tell him they
are contemplating suicide or killing their pets to spare them from the devastation.

Morrison recounted some of these messages and the “conflation of a variety of threads” of non-fact-based belief about all of it.

“None of these ‘facts’ is true,” he emphasized. “No scientist supports any of these claims. None of these stories is covered in newspapers or TV.” It has
been almost entirely an Internet phenomenon.

As for a supposed galactic alignment, “I don’t know what an alignment is. It’s not a term used by astronomers. There is no alignment in December. There is
no core of fact to this. These things are not going to happen.”

Says Morrison: “It’s all part of a mindset that believes in prophecy.”

Morrison labels this new outlook “Cosmophobia—the fear of the end of the universe.” People who believe it are getting all their “information” on YouTube
and elsewhere on the Internet. The problem has been exacerbated by the fact that “science shows on cable TV have gotten a lot worse.” Assuming short
attention spans, the trend now, even on mainstream channels, is to be “hyper-exciting,” with explosions, impacts, and so on every ninety seconds.

The conspiracy meme doesn’t help, says Morrison. “People afraid of the government in one area have spread it to every topic.”

Sharon Hill, using lively illustrations, spoke on “How to Think about Weird News.” Hill, a geologist by training, does the Doubtful News blog and
writes a column on CSI’s website called “Sounds Science-y.” (An SI article on that subject by Hill appeared in our March/April 2012 issue.)

“I’m a ‘weird news’ junky,” she said. “Weird news is my favorite conversation topic.” Weird news makes for a good story, she says: “Mystery is mongered.
The wow factor is stressed. . . . TV and entertainment is our new misinformation highway.”

She considers the main audience for her Doubtful News site “the critical thinking community.” The topics she examines are endless, the sources pitiful:
“Real things entwined with wrongness.” Videos are hoaxed, birds fall from the sky, strange sounds are heard, dead carcasses of normal animals are claimed
to be demonoids or monsters. She has a whole category called “underwater mysteries.” Then there are the quack cancer cures, always a problem for
science-minded skeptics (“There is almost no way to write about them without sounding heartless”), bogus consumer products, and emotional appeals. You’d
think it’d all tire Hill out. But she’s still enthusiastic. “I’m pretty dedicated to not missing something good.”

Scott O. Lilienfeld had the “honor” of being the conference’s final speaker, but he performed his task so well no one’s interest wavered. “It has been an
amazing conference,” he said. He dedicated his talk to CSI founder Paul Kurtz, who, Lilienfeld observed, “was always respectful and gentlemanly.”

Lilienfeld, a psychologist and member of the CSI Executive Council, spoke on “The Great Myths of Popular Psychology.” He noted that “even for our brightest
students, it’s a confusing world out there.” The pop psychology industry perpetuates myths, and no one is immune. For instance, 77 percent of his students
begin by believing that schizophrenics have “multiple personalities,” 63 percent think memory is like a video camera, 47 percent say memories don’t change,
and 61 percent think hypnosis is useful in solving crimes. This “naïve realism—the belief that the world is exactly as we see it”—is exemplified by the
belief that eyewitness observation is always correct and in the often-heard (and often exactly wrong) phrases “seeing is believing” and “I know what I
saw.”

Lilienfeld ranged over a variety of examples of selective perception and memory, including illusory correlations (such as the repeatedly debunked idea that
psychiatric admissions increase during the full moon) where “our brains are making the correlation.” He ended by bringing up the troubling implications of
some recent research. Debunking can be effective, these studies show, but it can also have backfire effects, reinforcing beliefs instead of disabusing
people of them. “We need more than debunking; we need alternative accounts. . . . Spend more time telling what’s true, not what’s false.”

Economic Fraud: How Cons and Criminals Scam the Public

“What harm does it do?” That is the perennial challenge hurled at skeptics. What harm is there in people credulously believing in things that aren’t true,
that are too good to be true? When it comes to economic fraud crimes, the harm is self-evident. Money is lost, lots of it. Sometimes one’s life savings,
sometimes entire fortunes.

Psychologist Anthony Pratkanis, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, is deeply involved in this issue, and he gave a powerful presentation on the
weapons of fraud—how cons and criminals scam the public. Americans alone lose $40 billion a year in telemarketing fraud, $110 billion in fraud generally.
Worldwide, the totals are staggering.

There is no evidence for the myth of the weak victim. The weak and the strong are taken. And the evidence indicates that seniors are less
susceptible, not more; they are just targeted more. Victims are more likely to have experienced a negative life event. And contrary to what you might
expect, victims are more, not less, financially literate. They think they are immune. That makes everyone susceptible.

Social influence is the weapon in fraud crimes, Pratkanis emphasized.

He showed parts of a training video, “Weapons of Fraud,” detailing how scam artists tailor their pitch to what makes you vulnerable. (“It’s like cold
reading.”) They keep and share records of phone conversations. They use such weapons as phantom fixation (something you would like that is completely
unavailable), social proof (“other people are winning”), false scarcity (about this rare 1860 coin, “There are only four left in the world”), authority,
reciprocity, and a whole litany of others.

Can we stop it? Pratkanis described a project he and his psychologist colleagues have been working on with the FBI and other law enforcement authorities.
It is called Santa Monica’s Reverse Boiler Room. It involves identifying victims before the con is completed, calling them, and warning them. The reverse
call center sends out prevention messages, giving people a coping strategy.

Ethical safeguards have been put in place, and the FBI is on-site to monitor. Victims are debriefed.

Does it work? “It has cut the victimization rate in half,” says Pratkanis. “This is the first demonstration of an effective deterrent to this crime. . . .
Forewarning works.”

As a scientist, Pratkanis says he finds this work “exhilarating.” But as a human being, “I got depressed. We can see how it [scamming] works. Yet it keeps
going on and on.”

‘Quackademic Medicine’: Teaching Pseudoscience in Medical Schools

A problem of serious concern to skeptics these days is the rapid perfusion of pseudoscience into medical schools. This practice is eagerly promoted by
proponents of so-called alternative medicine and increasingly allowed by a medical education culture not alert to what’s at stake.

Prominent physicians in the skeptical movement brought the practice into the spotlight in a major CSICon symposium on the problem.

One good label for the infiltration of pseudoscience into medical schools is “Quackademic Medicine,” a term coined by physician Robert W. Donnell. In the
CSI symposium, cancer surgeon David Gorski, who edits the Science-Based Medicine website, used that term approvingly. He noted that quackery has undergone
a linguistic evolution, a “ major rebranding of quackery.” What forty years ago was properly called “unscientific medicine” began to be called, in the
1970s and 1980s, “alternative medicine.” (He considers that simply “unproven” and “often, disproven” practices.) “Complementary and Alternative
Medicine” (CAM) came along in the 1990s, and now there is another rebranding: “Integrative Medicine.” Gorski’s succinct take? “Integrative
medicine=science+magic.”

Major medical schools like the University of Maryland and Georgetown have been integrating CAM throughout their curriculum and even into basic science
courses. This has proven popular. “Bioenergetic medicine” is another new term, allowing the teaching of such nonscientific concepts as a “vital force” and
“qi.”

“This is the foot in the door . . . like the Trojan Horse,” said Gorski. Harvard, Michigan, and the Cleveland Clinic are all welcoming these intrusions
of questionable medical concepts into their curricula.

Often the cry is heard to “treat the whole patient.” “This pisses me off,” said Gorski. “That’s what doctors already do,” he notes. “And it creates a false
dichotomy: You don’t need to use quackery to ‘treat the whole patient.’”

He and other concerned physicians see an increasing hostility toward science-based medicine. One commentator even has called evidence-based healthcare
“microfascism.”

Contributing to the problem is the relative indifference of most physicians, what Gorski refers to as a “shruggie,” a person who doesn’t care. “Most
doctors just don’t care.”

“SkepDoc” Harriet Hall, a frequent SI contributor, said what’s happening in medical schools is a reflection of what’s happening in society overall. The
view is, in short, “We don’t need no stinkin’ intellectuals” and “We don’t need no education—we have Google.” Other factors include the ideas that positive
thinking makes it so and “my facts are as good as any others,” a distrust for authority, looking for an easy solution, postmodernism (truth is relative),
and a rising acceptability of doctor-bashing.

She told the story of a retired physician who took up acupuncture and soon found it working on everything. Wrote this doctor: “There is nothing like
personal experience to convince one of an effect.” Hall noted that he made a litany of common mistakes: confirmation bias, using biased sources, not
recognizing how charisma can influence your view, cherry-picking the data, not understanding why science is necessary, relying on personal experience, the
cause-effect fallacy, the ancient wisdom fallacy, and relying on the personal experience of others. “The plural of anecdote is not evidence,” Hall
commented. She lamented that critical thinking is not taught in medical schools.

Kimball Atwood, another frequent contributor to SI and to Science-Based Medicine, reiterated Gorski’s view that misleading language contributes to giving
nonscientific and pseudoscientific medical practices a free pass. Terms such as “allopathic,” “holistic,” “complementary,” “alternative,” “integrative,”
and “Western” all mislead.

Atwood raised a reasonable question: “Why discuss implausible claims at all?” He believes medical schools should teach scientific skepticism. There are
also important lessons in the history of medicine that can be taught, like the downfall of bloodletting and the “pre-scientific practices” that persist
today, such as homeopathy, where teaching about Avogadro’s number could help students understand homeopathy’s innate implausibility. Skepticism, with its
emphasis on logical fallacies and its insistence that clear thinking should trump pseudoscience, has great value.

As for worries that it may be impolite or impolitic to raise such issues, Atwood said, “Clear thinking should not be sacrificed on the altar of
politeness.”

It is a question of medical ethics, he emphasized: “Implausible treatments are unethical. Deceptive placebos are unethical. And human studies of highly
implausible claims are unethical.”

Eugenie C. Scott was the only non-physician who spoke. As executive director of the National Center for Science Education (and a physical anthropologist)
she has great concerns about allowing more and more pseudoscience into medical schools. “It will miseducate students,” she said. As for academic freedom,
that is important, she noted, because it allows teachers to teach unpopular ideas and to challenge students. But there is also “academic judgment,” she
insisted.

“The issues are quite profound.”

The Skeptical Inquirer plans a future article on how nonscientific concepts are making their way into the education of physicians. —K.F.

Gender Issues in Science: What’s Different, What’s Not?

Gender issues continue to gain attention and generate controversy. Good science, critical inquiry, and clear thinking all can help illuminate, not
exacerbate, the issues. A morning session on gender issues explored the degree to which psychological differences between the sexes exist and to what
degree they are hardwired or the result of culture.

Richard Lippa of California State University, Fullerton, offered a thoughtful examination of Janet Hyde’s argument that there are not that many
differences. He first looked at psychological differences. In the dimensions of agreeableness and neuroticism, women tend to be more highly represented. In
the domain of mental illness, males tend to have such disorders as autism, mental retardation, reading disorders, and Tourette’s syndrome, while women
experience more depression by a 2:1 ratio and also tend to have more bipolar, panic, and conversion disorders. Among personality disorders, males tend much
more than females to be antisocial or sociopaths. “So there are big differences in psychology,” he said.

As for overall intelligence, any differences are small. One area where differences are big is along the people-things dimension. Men tend always
to be more interested in things-oriented occupations, women in people-oriented occupations, and studies show that holds true over fifty-three nations. As
for social behaviors, men tend to be more aggressive (10:1 male:female ratio of murderers).

Overall, between men and women, he said studies show that some differences are small, some differences are moderate, and some differences are large.

Psychologist Carol Tavris (author of such books as The Mismeasure of Women) next took the stage. “That was a terrific talk,” she said of Lippa’s
presentation. “I have no differences with it. So I’m going to leave now!” The audience laughed. She proceeded.

She called for perspective (“either/or thinking is not going to get us anywhere”) and a sense of history. She noted that women have come a long way since 1960. She reiterated, “I completely
agree with Richard regarding psychological differences.” But she said many sex differences have flipped over in the past decade or two. “The problem is stereotypes.” She cautioned against “taking snapshots that assume differences at any time tell us about fundamental differences.” Another
caution is that in surveys “what people say has little to do with how they behave. . . . You don’t see the major differences when you
look at behavior.”

As an example, she said if you define aggression as “intention to harm,” you don’t see sex differences. “We just express it in different ways. . . . Women
are likely to ruminate more than men.” As for brain differences, there are indeed many anatomical and activity differences in men/women brains, but it all
comes down to “so what?” She pointed to three general problems with generalizing about brain differences: There is no correlation with behavior, brains are
complex, and each brain is unique.

What is the future of sex differences, and where are we going from here? Tavris summarized things this way. A lot in society is changing. It’s women who
are getting the educations. We are seeing huge differences in economic status. Women are now earning more, getting better educated, and getting better
jobs, so many are delaying marriage. “The whole planet is becoming Sweden,” is how she put it. Changes are being caused by the global economy and
circumstances.

A memorable moment came when a man in the audience concerned about how to think about gender differences asked Tavris for advice about raising his
daughter. She replied succinctly: “Enjoy the ones that matter, ignore the rest.” —K.F.

]]>CSICon New Orleans 2011 - Where Meeting Awesome Skeptics Is As Easy As Saying ‘Hello’Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:11:00 EDTinfo@csicop.org ()http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_where_meeting_awesome_skeptics_is_as_easy_as_sayi
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_where_meeting_awesome_skeptics_is_as_easy_as_sayiIndre Viskontas and Karen Stollznow take a break from skepticizing to smile for the camera. (Photo: Adam Isaak)

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry held its CSICon New Orleans 2011 conference October 27–30 at the New Orleans Marriott. It was a welcome resumption, after an eight-year hiatus, of CSICOP conferences.

It featured a dozen symposia on everything from conspiracy theories and UFOs to evolution versus creationism and skepticism in the media; special talks by skeptical luminaries; an awards banquet; and a host of social and entertainment events. The latter included a “Smarti Gras” parade and New Orleans Halloween Party Saturday evening at a French Quarter bar after the special conference address by Bill Nye “The Science Guy.”

Even before CSICon 2011 in New Orleans officially began, I was already having great conversations with skeptics from all over the country. While helping at the registration table I met Skeptical Inquirer readers and supporters from as close as a few blocks away from the conference hotel to as far away as the United Kingdom. It was amazing to see people from so many places convening in one place to celebrate reason, science, and skeptical inquiry.

It sure is something to be surrounded by so many like-minded people. Dorion Cable, who authored a great write-up on CSICon 2011 on her Detroit-based blog (http://motorcityblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/csicon-2011-best-assignment-evar-by-dc.html), com­men­ted that she recalls no place other than CSICon that people have actually recog­nized her Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace. But even some non–conference-goers had their interest piqued by the high concentration of skeptics. One hotel employee remarked, “You guys have the guy from the X-Files and Bill Nye the Science Guy? My nerd self just freaked out.”

The first session after opening re­marks on Thursday was “The In­vesti­gators” panel with stellar talks from Joe Nickell, Massimo Polidoro, Karen Stollznow, and Ben Radford on various investigations they’ve undertaken. Be­cause the topic of women in the skeptics movement is of particular interest to me, I was happy that I was able to ask Karen Stollznow during the Q&A session after her talk if she has noticed any advantages or disadvantages to being a female paranormal investigator—a minority within a minority. She answered that she hasn’t noticed her gender making a big difference either way but that many of the people she meets tend to assume she is a believer.

Meeting Karen after many years of exchanging the occasional email was a conference highlight for me. As I gushed on my Twitter page: “Finally met @karenstollznow in person! She’s just as awesome as I knew she’d be.” It was my conversations at CSICon about women in skepticism over dinner with Karen, Miracle Detectives star Indre Viskontas, and CFI Communications Director Michelle Blackley that in­spired me to get more involved in the movement and to start the blog We Are SkeptiXX (http://bit.ly/skeptixx).

Phil Plait’s talk on the “Death from the Skies!” panel on Friday had me in stitches. “How do you keep [asteroids from hitting the Earth]?” he asked his captivated audience. “Well, if you ask Hollywood ... you will get the wrong answer.” After showing a clip from the horribly inaccurate 1998 movie Arma­ged­don, Plait pointed out that perhaps the most ludicrous detail in the scene is the fact that it is violently raining on the asteroid as Bruce Willis attempts to get the bomb into place. What’s wrong with that? Just the little fact that asteroids don’t have their own atmospheres and therefore there is no weather on them. I was able to talk with Plait for a couple minutes and compliment him on his ability to make his talks so enjoyable. He told me of a college professor he once had who during his classes would literally play a recording of himself giving a lecture. The memory of having to sit through those “lectures” is one of the things that motivate Plait to ensure that all of his own talks are engaging and entertaining.

Margaret Downey, founder of the Freethought Society, was a smash hit at the Smarti Gras party as the Tree of Life. (Photo: Brian D. Engler)

Another highlight of the conference was once again seeing CSI Fellow James Randi—they sure don’t call him “The Amazing” for nothing. His talk during the “Sleights of Mind” panel on Friday was nothing short of inspiring. He re­minded us all that no matter how much pride we take in our skepticism and critical thinking skills, every one of us can fall prey to tricks and smoke and mirrors: “I don’t tell you how the tricks are done for a very simple reason ... I want you to know that you can be deceived.” One of my very favorite conference keepsakes is a picture I was able to snap of Randi “conjuring” CSI Fellow Richard Saunders’s famous origami Pigasus, the mascot of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).

Another panel I really enjoyed was Saturday’s “Skepticism and the Media,” which featured William B. Davis of X-Files fame, Miracle Detec­tives star Indre Viskontas, and New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee. Led by CFI Communica­tions Director Michelle Blackley, it was the first CSI/CSICOP conference panel with a female moderator. After Davis’s engaging talk in which he admitted he once unknowingly agreed to moderate a panel of 9/11 Truthers—“You must do your homework!” he reminded us—Indre Viskontas wondered aloud, “How can I follow Cancer Man? Well, at least I wore my cigarette pants.” On a more serious note, she went on to remind us all that “It is counterproductive to dismiss someone’s story off the bat,” a mistake that she has seen some skeptics make. As Viskontas told Sharon Hill in her SI interview (Novem­ber/December 2011), “Once you’ve dismissed them, you’ve lost them. They don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

CSI Fellow Richard Saunders, Life Member of the Australian Skeptics and the sole skeptical judge on Australia’s psychic-seeking reality show The One, was another delight to meet. I think ebullient is the best word to describe Richard. You’d be hard up to meet a more enthusiastic and personable skeptic. Richard not only allowed me to film him creating a JREF Pigasus (http://bit.ly/SaundersOrigami), he also invited me to appear on The Skeptic Zone podcast (http://bit.ly/skepticzone158). His Sunday presentation debunking Power Balance bands, in which he had some help from SI Deputy Editor Ben Radford in the form of audience participation (http://bit.ly/powerbalancedemo), was a big hit. (See also, “Power Balance Down and Out in Australia,” SI, September/October 2011 and “Power Balance Bracelets a Bust in Tests,” SI, January/February 2012).

My vote for “quote of the conference” came from SI Editor Ken Frazier during the close of his opening re­marks on Thursday: “One of the secrets we’ve kept from the public all these years is that skepticism is not just important, it’s also fun!” CSICon 2011 in New Orleans certainly proved the truth of Ken’s aphorism. Where else but CSICon would I have had the opportunity to have incredibly interesting conversations with luminaries in the skeptics movement while fast-dancing with the “big boss,” CFI president and CEO Ron Lindsay; rockin’ out to the Heathens (led by Inde­pendent Investigations Group founder Jim Underdown); eating ice cream with the eminent Massimo Polidoro; and admiring the awesomeness that was Steven Novella’s Dr. Horrible costume for the “Smarti Gras” party? I will most definitely be back at CSICon 2012, and I hope to meet even more of you SI readers and supporters there.

Bill Nye “The Science Guy” received the In Praise of Reason Award, the highest award of the Com­mittee for Skeptical Inquiry, at the CSICon New Orleans 2011 conference awards banquet.

The In Praise of Reason Award is given in recognition of distinguished contributions in the use of critical inquiry, scientific evidence, and reason in evaluating claims to knowledge. Previous recipients include Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, James Randi, and Nobel laureate physicists Murray Gell-Mann and Leon Lederman, among others.

Nye has a long string of television credits that promote good science, starting with his Emmy Award–winning 1990s series Bill Nye the Science Guy. An aeronautical engineer by training and early experience, Nye drew on his scientific and engineering background as a solid foundation for his demonstrations of scientific principles that are at the core of his communication of science to the public.

Subsequent programs include The Eyes of Nye, 100 Greatest Discoveries, Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye, and Stuff Happens. His Bill Nye’s Climate Lab is a new permanent exhibit at the Oakland, California–based Chabot Space and Science Center.

Nye is now the executive director of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California.

“If you think Bill is popular among skeptics, you should attend a science teacher conference where he is speaking,” said Eugenie C. Scott, a member of CSI’s Executive Council, in presenting the award. “The National Science Teachers Association draws upwards of 12,000 [to] 15,000 teachers; I think all of them attend his talks, because although the organizers schedule his lecture in the largest ballroom in the conference center, there still are people standing in the back and in the aisles.

“It is obvious why,” said Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. “Ken Frazier spoke at the opening ceremonies about the sense of exhilaration that skeptics feel in enjoying science—and that skepticism is ‘fun.’ Hardly anyone has as much fun as Bill Nye when he is talking about, and especially when he is demonstrating, principles of science.

“If you have seen any of his programs discussing astrology or other, to quote Carl Sagan, ‘extraordinary claims,’ you will soon see why he was made a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a longtime skeptic and proponent of critical thinking—obvious in all of his television programs.”

Steven Novella was presented with CSI’s Robert P. Balles Annual Prize for Critical Thinking at the same awards banquet. The $1,500 award is given to the author of the published work or body of work that best exemplifies healthy skepticism, logical analysis, or empirical science.
The award, previously announced (SI July/Aug­ust 2011), was presented by CSI Executive Council member and Skeptical Inquirer Edi­tor Kendrick Frazier.

In his case, Novella was honored not for a particular article or publication but instead for his “tremendous body of work,” including the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe weekly science podcast, the Science-Based Medicine blog, his Neuro­logica blog, his Skeptical In­quirer column, “The Science of Medi­cine,” and his tireless travel and lecture schedule on behalf of skepticism.

“You may be the hardest worker in all of skepticism,” CSI Executive Director Barry Karr said when he first announced the award. “We are honored to present you with this award.”

Novella is a clinical neurologist, assistant professor, and director of general neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the Com­mittee for Skeptical Inquiry.

]]>CSICon New Orleans 2011 - Critical Thinking in the Crescent CityThu, 28 Jun 2012 13:56:00 EDTinfo@csicop.org ()http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_critical_thinking_in_the_crescent_city
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_critical_thinking_in_the_crescent_cityThe Committee for Skeptical Inquiry held its CSICon New Orleans 2011 conference October 27–30 at the New Orleans Marriott. It was a welcome resumption, after an eight-year hiatus, of CSICOP conferences.

It featured a dozen symposia on everything from conspiracy theories and UFOs to evolution versus creationism and skepticism in the media; special talks by skeptical luminaries; an awards banquet; and a host of social and entertainment events. The latter included a “Smarti Gras” parade and New Orleans Halloween Party Saturday evening at a French Quarter bar after the special conference address by Bill Nye “The Science Guy.”

A Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) conference has been long-awaited since the last event held in 2003. The inaugural CSICon, the conference dedicated to scientific inquiry and critical thinking, was held October 27–30, 2011.

For such an event there simply is no better location than the French Quarter in New Orleans and simply no better time than the Halloween weekend. As I demonstrated in my talk “Making History,” New Orleans is the most “haunted” city in the country (or at least one of the many “most haunted”).

NOLA is famous for its music, cuisine, and Cajun and Creole culture, but it’s also a city teeming with pseudoscience and the paranormal. Jackson Square has art galleries and museums but also resident psychics offering tarot, palm, and astrology readings. The French Quarter is infamous for the reputation of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, and Southern Decadence, but it’s also known for its underbelly of voodoo, hoodoo, and Santeria. The city has a remarkable and vibrant history but is often best remembered for its folklore of ghosts, vampires, and Voo­doo Queen Marie Laveau. The conference was a haven of rationalism, inquiry, and skepticism amid the myths and legends of the Big Easy.

Paul Offit talks about the importance of vaccination during a special luncheon address. (Photo: Brian D. Engler)

CSICon featured an exciting array of dynamic speakers. These are people we’ve seen on television, whose writings we’ve read in books and copies of the Skeptical Inquirer, and who we’ve listened to on podcasts and radio shows. There were fascinating and informative talks presented by James Randi, Bill Nye, PZ Myers, Lawrence Krauss, and Indre Viskontas of the TV show Miracle Detectives. The conference was well-attended with over 300 people but intimate enough to enable personal conversations with speakers and fellow conference-goers.

CSI was well-represented by speakers from within its own ranks, including Fellows Phil Plait, Seth Shostak, Edzard Ernst, David Morrison, Dave Thomas, and Sandra Blakeslee; Execu­tive Council members Eugenie Scott, Scott Lilienfeld, and James Alcock; and Point of Inquiry’s Chris Mooney.

This was also a time for commendation. During a banquet dinner, Bill Nye received the “In Praise of Reason” Award and Steve Novella was presented with the Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking. For his decades of investigative work, Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell was recognized with an asteroid named after him. (See separate stories.)

CSICon encouraged knowledge-sharing and networking, but it wasn’t all “work”; there was plenty of play with many unique extracurricular events. At the opening reception there was a performance by the Heathens, a band led by Jim Underdown of the Independent Investigations Group (IIG). David Willey, the “Mad Scientist,” presented “How Does a Thing Like That Work?,” an entertaining and interactive lecture consisting of the more visual and dramatic demonstrations from an introductory physics course.

One of the many highlights of CSICon was the Smarti Gras parade. It was a sight to behold—hundreds of skeptics in Halloween costumes led by a police escort and jazz band to the legendary Tipitina’s jazz club. In true New Orleans style, passers-by joined in with the merriment, cheering us along and even following the parade. We hope to have the same public reaction to our critical thinking!

David Willey takes a sledgehammer to the chest (wielded by his assistant) in the name of skepticism. (Photo: Adam Isaak)

This is what CSICon is about: showing that skepticism is not only important but also fun.

The party included music, dancing, jambalaya, and Halloween costumes. Blake Smith, of the IIG in Atlanta, won the best skeptically themed costume award for his “Occam’s Shaving Cream” outfit.

Unlike in other conference reports, the cuisine deserves a mention too. CSICon departed from the usual bland conference fare, offering crab cakes with a spicy remoulade, eggs benedict with andouille, and an ice cream buffet with freshly made waffle cones.

Disappointed that the festivities were over, enthusiastic skeptics continued the revelry with a post-conference tour of the beautiful flora and fauna of the Louisiana swamps and marshes.

In general, the conference was a wonderful opportunity to learn and share learning, reconnect with old friends, and establish new friendships. Attendees left the conference armed with new information and perspectives, reinvigorated to step outside of the conference hall and take skepticism to the streets.

This was a highly successful and refreshingly different conference. Nego­tiations are already underway for next year. It is rumored that CSICon 2012 is being planned to be even bigger and better and that CSICon is poised to become a preeminent skeptical conference for years to come.

Joe Nickell Has Asteroid Named After Him

It was a surprise announcement at the beginning of the Friday night awards banquet at CSICon New Orleans 2011. Astronomer and CSI scientific consultant James McGaha came forward and announced that an asteroid has been named for Joe Nickell in honor of his distinguished work on behalf of science, skepticism, and critical inquiry.

Nickell, the tireless investigator, prolific writer, and author who is CSI’s senior research fellow, accepted the award. Asteroid 1999 CE10, discovered by McGaha on February 9, 1999, will henceforth be known as Joenickell. It is a main belt asteroid about five kilometers in diameter with a period of 3.44 years. The Inter­national Astronomical Union’s Com­mittee on Small Body Nomenclature oversees the official naming process using a set of well-defined guidelines.

Here is the citation:

31451 Joenickell = 1999 CE10

Named in honor of Joe Nickell (b. 1944), the Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. A noted author, investigator, and skeptic, Nickell has written more than 30 books on mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He promotes scientific inquiry and reasoned investigation of extraordinary claims.

James McGaha (center right) announces an asteroid has been named after CSI senior research fellow Joe Nickell (center left) while Eugenie C. Scott, Bill Nye, and Steven Novella approve.

]]>CSICon New Orleans 2011 - Ideas and Analysis, Frauds and Fun: An Intellectual TreatFri, 22 Jun 2012 12:41:00 EDTinfo@csicop.org ()http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_ideas_and_analysis_frauds_and_fun_an_intellectual
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/csicon_new_orleans_2011_-_ideas_and_analysis_frauds_and_fun_an_intellectualThe Committee for Skeptical Inquiry held its CSICon New Orleans 2011 conference October 27–30 at the New Orleans Marriott. It was a welcome resumption, after an eight-year hiatus, of CSICOP conferences.

It featured a dozen symposia on everything from conspiracy theories and UFOs to evolution versus creationism and skepticism in the media; special talks by skeptical luminaries; an awards banquet; and a host of social and entertainment events. The latter included a “Smarti Gras” parade and New Orleans Halloween Party Saturday evening at a French Quarter bar after the special conference address by Bill Nye “The Science Guy.”

Like its earlier CSICOP conference predecessors, CSICon New Orleans 2011 was rich with provocative ideas, good science, critical thinking, informed analysis, and penetrating criticism of claims poorly supported by scientific evidence. It was also filled with fun social events that allowed plenty of opportunity for interactions with fellow skeptics and to enjoy the camaraderie shared by those who defend good science and expose shams, frauds, and unsupported claims.

It began on a Thursday afternoon with opening remarks by Center for Inquiry President Ronald A. Lindsay, CSI Executive Director Barry Karr, and me, and ended on Sunday afternoon with a “Houdini Séance” conducted by Joe Nickell, Ray Hyman, and Massimo Polidoro. The sessions provided quite an intellectual feast for science-minded skeptics of every stripe.

Some of the many highlights for me included:

• Bill Nye “The Science Guy’s” special conference address, informative and in­spiring. He provided a cosmic perspective on human curiosity and exploration and a sterling defense of the need for good science and math education for a science-literate citizenry. He ended with a backlit photo from the Cassini mission of a close-up Saturn seen from outside its orbit inward, the planet Earth a tiny dot barely visible through its rings.

• Chemistry Nobel laureate (and CSI Fellow) Sir Harry Kroto’s talk “Educa­tion as the New Dark Age Ap­proaches.” It excoriated parents who allow their religions to teach hatred toward others religions, lamented the rise of ideological-oriented nonsense (rather than common sense), and extolled natural philosophy (“the only philosophy we have devised to determine the truth with any degree of reality”). Kroto also called for more recognition of “true heroes” (those from the world of science, like Einstein, Darwin, Chandrasekhar, Maxwell, and Rosa­lind Franklin) and emphasized the importance of learning algebra and calculus (“the universe doesn’t speak any other language”).

• Chris Mooney’s talk (in a session on science and public policy) on the science of denial. He emphasized (as we have reported several other times recently) that corrections don’t change people’s false beliefs; in fact, they cause people to hold them all the more strongly, “doubling down” on them. Studies of “motivated reasoning,” the updated view of cognitive dissonance, show that we are not conscious of the vast majority of what our brains are doing and that our emotional reactions drive our memory retrieval. “By the time we are conscious of it we are defending ourselves—acting like law­yers.... This is how people work. We spin out all of the old rationalizations ... and create new ones.” And then there’s what he called the “smart idiot” effect, in which people who know more are more capable of showing bias and more skilled at coming up with arguments to defend their biased views. Thus things always polarize, a situation we now find endemic in political discourse.

• Indre Viskontas (neuroscientist and TV’s Miracle Detectives scientist; see the interview with her in our Novem­ber/December 2011 issue) on why we love stories and on using narratives to promote science. Why stories? Because we find them compelling. Stories or testimonials usually trump dry statistics because they are more easily remembered than facts. Likewise, stories become personal. Storytelling thus is a powerful tool for any message, including that of science and skepticism. In her role on the show, Viskontas says, “My job is to reframe the [claimed miracle] event in a way compatible with science. Some people might call me a skeptic.”

• Biologist and famed blogger PZ Myers’s passionate paean to the power of narrative storytelling (in stated strong agreement with Vis­kontas). Myers’s Myth Number One is that we “people of reason” are “soulless robots who don’t know how to communicate.” He rattled off a long list of scientist-atheists who are first-rate scientists and communicators. “This is a golden age of science writing,” he said. His Myth Number Two: “If you are credible or gullible you are so much better at stories.” The Bible, often extolled by even skeptics as at least full of good stories, got no praise from Myers. “Genesis is crap. It’s crazy town.... There was no global flood. This story makes no sense.” As for those who give it a pass by saying that Genesis is just a metaphor, he said, “Tell that to the people at Answers in Genesis.” Said Myers, “Our side has the good story,” and it has both truth and beauty, two values often ignored. He provided a sample story, a fossil find showing a mammoth bone carefully (and lovingly?) placed in the mouth of a fossil dog, “the best present you could give a dog” and a strong clue that “dogs have been our partners for thousands of years.” Another compelling story is that around 50,000 to 70,000 years ago a catastrophe of some sort reduced the entire world’s population to only about 1,200 people, including only about 500 in Africa. “We were close to extinction.... This is the story that science can tell you. It is underappreciated.” As he said, “Our stories are not only beautiful, they are true.”

• Investigator Massimo Polidoro’s “A Recipe for Testing Psychics” and his five rules: 1. Exactly define a claim (in writing). 2. Agree on a shared protocol. 3. Have the psychic perform a demonstration (which should be 100 percent successful, since there are no controls). 4. Add the control. 5. See what happens ... “and wait for the excuses.” In his twenty years experience, “only once has a person admitted [they were] wrong.”

• Physician Paul Offit’s stirring advocacy of vaccinations and condemnation of anti-vaccination campaigns, which undermine public health and endanger others. Offit, author of Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threat­ens Us All, said a lot of progress is being made, pointing out how the media came down hard on would-be presidential candidate Michele Bach­mann when she made an outlandish claim about the HPV vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer. At his hospital in Phila­delphia, the flu vaccine is mandatory for all employees. He said the measles vaccine will get some public attention when unvaccinated people start dying of that disease.

• The symposium “Sleight of Mind” by neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde and science journalist Sandra Blakeslee (coauthors of a recent book of the same title), plus James Randi on the neuroscience of magic. Macknik and Martinez-Conde have been studying how the world’s great magicians employ ancient principles that can now be explained using the latest discoveries of cognitive neuroscience. Illusions dissociate perception from reality and reflect what the brain is actually doing. The scientists described numerous cognitive illusions, demonstrated the power of manipulated awareness, and showed that different effects are due to different circuits of the brain. Randi, the hero of his fellow skeptics, worked with the authors in their studies and followed their joint talk with his own personal views on the subject. “Magicians have to be aware of how they themselves think,” he said, lamenting that “some magicians don’t know at base how their tricks work.” As for why he and other magicians don’t tell you how their tricks are done, he gave his stock answer: “I want you to leave here knowing that you can be deceived.” That is an invaluable lesson, he said. He called Macknik and Martinez-Conde pioneers in their field and “heroes” of his.

The X-Files’s William B. Davis presents on skepticism in the media. (Photo: Brian D. Engler)

• The symposium on alternative medical claims featuring physician/skeptic luminaries Steven Novella, Har­riet Hall, and Edzard Ernst. Hall punctured the acu­puncture myth, including the widespread belief that acupuncture is an ancient practice (“current practices developed in the twentieth century”) and showing that sham acupuncture works just as well. Novella ardently advocated science-based medicine and described a litany of biases that contribute to self-deception among patients and practitioners as well. Physi­cians themselves are susceptible to such clinical pitfalls as pattern recognition, relying on personal experience, elevating experience over evidence, failing to consider alternatives, be­coming confused by nonspecific symptoms, and falling prey to confirmation bias (“I’ve seen it work”). Throw in problems with re­search such as publication bias, research bias, the decline effect, and the fact that preliminary studies are not as rigorous, and it is no wonder that, as medical re­searcher John Ionnidis has written, the majority of medical studies are wrong. Ernst has published a thousand papers in peer-reviewed journals, including 300 systematic reviews. “Many of these publications have disappointed en­thusiasts of alternative medicine,” he noted. “Some were outraged.” He and his colleagues have examined studies funded by NCCAM, the National Center for Comple­men­tary and Al­tern­ative Medi­cine, and (as did authors of our January/February 2012 cover article on the topic) found many highly questionable. Re­gard­ing their studies of chiropractic, he found “questionable whether such research is worthwhile.” Rigorous studies of “energy medicine” were negative, hardly surprising since they were testing “implausible treatments.” When Prince Charles, an advocate of alternative medicine, complained about Ernst to the chancellor of his university, Ernst lost most of his funding and team. Ernst defended himself successfully but at high cost. He said his work has “generated substantial bodies of evidence,” much of it undermining assertions of alternative medicine, and made him “some friends, lots of enemies.”

CSI’s Barry Karr gives welcoming remarks. (Photo: Brian D. Engler)

This is just a brief taste of the sessions that made CSICon New Orleans 2011 such a treat. There were also lively sessions on “The Investigators” (Joe Nickell, Massimo Polidoro, Karen Stollznow, and Ben Radford), “Death from the Skies” (Phil Plait, David Morrison, and Seth Shostak), “Science and Public Policy” (Chris Mooney and Ron Lindsay), “Feeling the Future” (Ray Hyman and James Alcock), “Evo­lu­tion and Creationism” (Eugenie Scott and Barbara Forrest), “Skepti­cism and the Media” (Indre Viskontas, San­dra Blake­slee, and William B. Davis), “Super­stitions and Hauntings” (Amar­deo Sarma, Stuart Vyse, and Joe Nickell), “UFO Claims” (Robert Sheaf­fer and James McGaha), “Con­spiracy Theories” (David Thomas, Robert Blaskiewicz, and Ted Goert­zel), “Inde­pendent In­vestigation Groups,” “Grass­roots Activ­ism and Outreach,” “Educating the Next Genera­tion,” and a characteristically mind-bending lunch talk about frontiers of modern physics by physicist Lawrence Krauss.

It was exhausting but exhilarating, and we can hope there will be many more CSICons to come.